Happily Ever After - Reads: Review-Hunter of the Heart By Vanessa Jaye

His darkest secret could be her only hope.

Tessa Archer is sick of sitting on the sidelines of life, but the man she’s just met on her first Caribbean cruise is way out of her comfort zone. He’s dazzlingly handsome, compelling…and she swears she can hear his voice in her head before he speaks.

When Nathan Barcza touches Tessa’s hand, the jolt of recognition is unmistakable—and impossible. Werewolves mate only once—for life—and his mate was murdered by the creature he hunts, a Pithcus that hides somewhere aboard this ship. This is his final chance for vengeance.

The last thing he can afford is any distraction, but the siren call of Tessa’s open heart is irresistible. It also makes her a target of the creature who’s had a taste of her and wants more. To save her, Nate will have to unleash his last secret in a confrontation with no hope of survival.

For if the Pithcus doesn’t kill him, Nate’s partner is under orders to finish the job…

On Some level, he knew the view was fantastic, but if he thought about it at all it was to question how something so breathtaking could exist in the same world that held so much evil. Not that he was seeking higher consciousness. To the contrary, Nate anchored himself in the morass of his all-abiding hate.

Right off the bat, this story starts out on an emotional level for hero Nate, when his mate, Beth, is brutally murdered by the villain of the story, a monster-like shifter called a Pithcus, a creature only the eldest shifters can assume. The story picks up eight months later. Nate, also gravely injured during the attack that killed his mate, lives, but is an anomaly to the elder shifters who have been nursing him back to health, since no one is known to ever have survived the venomous bite of a Pithcus. During his recovery, the elders keep a close watch on him for signs that he will turn into something as evil as the Pithcus who attacked him, but he never does.

The story picks up again, five years later with Nate still searching for the Pithcus, who has been brutally killing and eating humans and shifters all over the world for the last five years. Nate, still mourning the death of his mate, is out for revenge, and has made it his life’s mission to kill the Pithcus. Along for the hunt is cat-shifter Mitch, who seems to be Nate’s friend, but by order of the elders, will also be Nate’s executioner, without question, if he shows signs of turning into the evil Pithcus that the elders suspect he might one day. The banter between Mitch and Nate is great, and Mitch has some one-liners that keep the story humorous. Their lead on the trail of the Pithcus takes them to a Florida cruise ship, where Nate meets Tessa, a human who he’s sure his dead mate has inhabited in some way.

Tessa is at a point in her life when she’s coming out of a shell of sorts. She’s spent most of her life in the shadow of her more “popular and outgoing” twin sister who died recently in a car accident, and residing in a relationship with a man who didn’t value her. Sick of the lack of spontaneity in her life, she decides to take the cruise by herself, much to her family and friends' shock.

There is an obvious connection between Tessa and Nate from the very first time they meet. Their connection continues to build very quickly as things escalate with the Pithcus on the ship, as Nate does all he can to protect Tessa from the creature, while also trying to keep a secret from Tessa.

I enjoyed the chemistry between Tessa and Nate, especially in their first “love” scene. Sometimes too detailed love scenes annoy me, but I found this one to be sweet along with hot. It’s a long and detailed description that I thought was well done. And of course, what would a shifter story be without the whole “mine” and “mate” thing?

Nate broke the kiss, chest heaving. “You have to be sure, Tessa,” he rasped out. “My kind, we mate for life. If we do this, there’s no turning back. There will never be another woman for me. And there can never be another man for you.”

His canines pushed out between his lips and his eyes glittered. “It wouldn’t be safe. For him.”

It’s been a while since I’ve read a paranormal romance, and I always have to remember to take detailed notes when I do, not so much for the review, but just so I can keep it all straight in my head—especially if the book is part of a series. Because paranormals seem to be some of the most detail oriented stories out there, at least in my experience. There were a couple parts in this book where I found myself backtracking to understand something that just happened, but for the most part, I found the paranormal world easy to follow, possibly because of the shorter length?

This was a nice, shorter read, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a quick shifter story with some angst and some hot lovin’. I also enjoyed reading a story that takes place on a cruise ship, since I have very fond memories of the cruise I took with my hubby the month before our wedding in 2007. I was easilly able to picture the ship we sailed on while reading.

Vanessa Jaye is a brand new author for me, but the book publisher, Samhain, has always been one of my favorite publishing houses, so I knew it probably wouldn’t disappoint. Hunter of the Heart is book one in the Moon, Magic, Madness series, and I will have to keep an eye out for book two.